ABOUT INER
At the Institute for Non-Empirical Results, Thomas and Gail explore the interactions of sounds and materials to test the creative capacities of cause and effect. Inspired by research but lead by a sense of instinctive play, they create novel objects and environments melding the acoustic, the mechanical and the digital in order to manifest oddities and invisibilities.
Gail Priest & Thomas Burless have been working on various sound installation projects of Gail's since 2015. They began to work as co-creators with the performance installation A continuous self-vibrating region of intensities co-commissioned by Performance Space and The Substation for the Liveworks Festival, Sydney in 2019. After many lockdowns and cancellations, The Substation presentation took the form of the multi-room exhibition Five Self-Vibration Regions of Intensities in 2023, where Gail and Tom formalised their collaboration under the project title The Institute for Non-Empirical Results (INER).
Thomas Burless is an industrial artisan whose practice is centred on the design and manufacture of limited run, bespoke products. His deeply considered approach to design and an ever-present curiosity about new, old and sometimes forgotten materials and processes, gives his work a unique character. Tom is also a photographer and an archivist of industrial paraphernalia and detritus.
Dr Gail Priest has a multidisciplinary practice that focuses on the aural realm. Working across installation, composition, recording and performance she is interested in creating works that dwell in a liminal zone between figuration and abstraction. She has performed live electro-acoustic compositions and exhibited sound-based installations nationally and internationally including in Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Norway and the Netherlands. She also curates events and exhibitions and writes fictively and factually about sound and media art.
Email: info@iner.space